President Robert Mugabe has claimed the ability to strike fear into President Barack Obama, adding that this explains his exclusion from summits attended by Western leaders.

Zimbabwe's leader was one of a handful of African presidents who was pointedly not invited to attend a US-Africa summit in Washington last month. America joined Britain and the European Union in imposing a travel ban and asset freeze on him 12 years ago.

But Mr Mugabe, widely condemned for human rights abuses and rigged elections, said that fear lay behind these decisions. Addressing an audience of supporters, he said: "It's your support which enables me with my small frame to instill fear in the likes of Obama. They invite all other leaders to meetings but say Mugabe cannot come and I wonder whether it's my misfortune. In the past, when we attended these meetings, Western leaders would disappear once they knew that I was around."

Mr Mugabe, 90, cannot be excluded from all international meetings. He is still able to attend United Nations gatherings - even if they are held in a country that enforces a travel ban - and he was a mourner at the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005. However, he is regarded as such a pariah that Western leaders generally avoid him even when they are at the same event.

Mr Mugabe also denounced Zimbabwe's few remaining white citizens, telling them to pack their bags and go back to Britain. "Don't they [whites] know where their ancestors came from?" he asked. "The British who are here should all go back to England. We now have aeroplanes which can take them back quicker than the ships used by their ancestors."

About 300 white farmers, who survived 14 years of land invasions, work small parts of their original holdings. They are able to continue only because they give Mr Mugabe's senior colleagues a share of their profits.